


Covid- The End of Days

by TWDObsessive



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: COVID, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, End of the World, Happy Ending, M/M, One-Shot, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:27:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24220567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/pseuds/TWDObsessive
Summary: No one took Covid-19 seriously enough.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes
Comments: 16
Kudos: 83





	Covid- The End of Days

**Author's Note:**

> Seems apropos to write a fic about the current apocalypse we are living in. Just a short one-shot to hide in because I've been having a really, really rough time lately. Warning- Unbeta'd because I just wanted to post it without thinking about it too much.

There was a knock at Daryl’s door which was weird enough under normal circumstances but now with the end of the world in full effect it was even stranger. Hell, for a second he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. No one ever knocked on his door -- before the virus or after. Should he lay low and pretend he wasn’t home or answer it? 

After another knock, he stood up from his recliner where he’d been staring at a blank TV for hours. Cable went out weeks ago. He threw his crossbow over his shoulder and walked to the door. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need for his weapon. It wasn’t like it was the zombie kind of apocalypse and he didn’t anticipate a suicidal deer knocking on this door hoping for a shot in the ass.

“Who is it?” he hollered from his safe spot behind the door.

“Um. Rick. Rick Grimes. I live a few streets over.”

Daryl could see through the peephole that Rick had his mask on and was standing a good six feet back from the door. Smart man. His red-rimmed eyes spoke of loss and sleepless nights and his thick curls and wid beard indicated that, like everyone, he hadn’t had a haircut in months.

Daryl pulled up his own face mask and unlatched the locks to the door and swung it open.

He looked up and down the deserted street. “Kinda thought after those protests Senoia was all but dead.”

“Might be. You're the 25th door I’ve knocked on.”

“What you need, food? Alls I got left is some jerky and tuna. You’re welcome to it but If you’re looking for toilet paper you’re well out of luck. Though I can show you what not to use. Learned about poison ivy the hard way.”

Rick laughed and although Daryl couldn’t see his smile through the mask he was fairly certain it was just to be polite. 

“Thanks, ummm…”

“Daryl. Dixon.”

“Thanks, Daryl,” Rick said. “I’m pretty well stocked up at my place. But I could use a hand. Could pay you in food and water.”

“What do you need?” Daryl asked, having an instant connection with what could possibly be the only other man alive in the state of Georgia.

“911 went out a while back and I ummm…” Rick rubbed his hand along his neck. “My wife, ex-wife actually, and son didn’t make it. I’d like to bury them in the back yard. Been trying for days, but I could use another set of hands.”

“Shit man, I’m so fucking sorry,” Daryl said. “My brother didn’t make it either. It was early on. Went to the hospital and never came out.”

Rick nodded, sympathy clear in his eyes. “I’m sorry, brother,” Rick said with a heartfelt compassion Daryl isn’t sure he’d ever heard before.

“Least they ain’t gotta live through this, I guess,” Daryl said.

Rick nodded and stood there patiently.

“Let me get my shovel,” Daryl said and he left the door open, knowing someone as cautious as Rick wouldn’t bother coming in.

The walk back to Rick’s was longer than Daryl expected. “You tried all these houses?” he asked.

“Yup. Not a soul. You can tell the ones with the dead inside. Smells,” Rick said and Daryl could barely make out the wrinkle in the other man’s nose through his mask.

“You know Carl wanted us to shelter together even though we were divorced. Did it for him. Lori was a nurse. Came and went and man, I was all over them. All over them. And I didn’t get it. I wonder if I’m immune.”

Daryl nodded his head as he moved his shovel from one shoulder to the other. “Thought of that myself. Worked in a nursing home. All dead now. Staff, too. I was the only one didn’t get it.”

Following Rick down Greene Street, he took notice of the man’s tired walk, his bowed legs and his hunched shoulders. 

“Seems like you could use some rest, Rick,” Daryl said with a laugh. 

“I’ll sleep when they're buried.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Two weeks.”

“Jesus, you ain’t slept in two weeks? Man, that’s dangerous.”

“I get a cat nap here and there. Digging graves and dragging bodies isn’t as easy as it looks on TV.

“Yeah. Bastards. Ain’t nothing ever been said or done on TV that was real. This shit was supposed to disappear in March.”

“Well, now that the cable’s out we don’t got to listen to the President lie no more,” Rick added.

Daryl was glad to see that the bodies were already pulled out to the yard and covered in sheets. Smell weren’t so bad if they weren’t cooped up in a room. There was the start of a pathetic attempt of a hole under a magnolia tree. 

Rick looked up at it. “She loved that tree.”

Daryl dropped his crossbow, never went anywhere without it after the armed militias storming the capitol buildings. He immediately went to digging.

“You have no reason to help me,” Rick said solemnly as he started in, too.

“Living’s gotta stick together.” 

After a while of both of them digging Rick suggested a lemonade break. Since the kitchen was big enough to stand back six feet, Daryl followed him in and watched Rick make them drinks. 

“You a professional lemonade maker in the old world, Rick?” Daryl asked with a grin Rick wouldn't be able to see.

“Lemonade making was my fallback. I was a cop.”

Daryl’s eyebrows went up at that. “All those protestors and you still didn’t get it?”

Rick pushed a glass of lemonade over towards Daryl’s side of the counter. 

“Maybe you are immune,” he said after a long swallow of the sugar-sweet lemonade.

“Rather be dead to be honest,” Rick said.

Daryl thought about it for a while. “Same. No sports. No job, No Merle, Just a lot of nothing.”

“How about this,” Rick started. After we bury my people, we take off the masks and shake hands like the old days. If we’re immune, then so be it.”

“And if we’re not...so be it,” Daryl agreed.

They finished their lemonade and went back to work, digging at hard earth under the scorching Georgia sun. It took most of the day, but eventually they had two holes and two bodies. Daryl very respectfully helped Rick put them into the earth and without a word they went back to work covering them up. 

By evening the mounds of earth were covered and the two men sat on a swinging bench out back, drenched in sweat and covered in dirt. “Thank you,” Rick said.

“You want to like...say anything?” Daryl asked.

“Atheist,” Rick answered.

“Sounds good. I think I’m gonna join up with that.”

He looked back at Rick as the other man laughed. 

“So, We gonna do this?” Daryl asked as he grabbed the ear piece of his mask.

Rick pulled his off and Daryl followed suit. The other man reached out a hand. “Nice to meet you Daryl Dixon,” and Daryl shook his hand. First handshake in probably almost a year. 

He couldn’t take his eyess of Rick’s plump, pouty lips and he wondered if he’d been lucky this long if it would be too much to ask for the last living man on earth to be gay, too.

“You have a nice smile,” Rick said wearing a smile of his own that didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

Daryl blushed. “It’s crooked.”

“I think it’s endearing.”

“Pfft. We don’t use fancy words like that down on my end of the street.”

Rick laughed and swatted away a lightning bug. “Think you’d want to stay? I mean, you’re alive and I’m alive. We’re both atheists. Both like lemonade. Got a lot in common. Might as well shack up,” Rick jokes. And Daryl turns pink at even the hint of potential.

He looks up at the moon. “Don’t got nowhere else to be, I suppose.

Rick stood up. I’ve got some lean cuisines and the generator still works. Can I interest you in tasteless rubber chicken and over cooked veggies?

“Sure. But tomorrow I’m gonna head out north. See If I can get us some deer. You got a freezer on that gennie?”

“Yup.”

“We’ll be eating better soon. Promise,” Daryl said.

Rick set up the spare room for Daryl, put out a set of towels and showed him where everything was. “Mi casa es su casa”. Rick said. “What’s mine is yours. I can thank you enough for your help today.”

“Weren’t nothing,’ Daryl said shucking off the praise. 

“I got Yatzee,” Rick said apropos of nothing. “You wanna play?”

The poor guy was not like Daryl. He wasn’t used to being alone and this change in the world must have been hell on him. “Sure, let’s play.” Daryl said.

“Gotta warn ya, though,” Daryl said trying to bring a smile to Rick’s pretty lips. “I’m a sore loser. Could flip the table if it don’t go my way.”

Rick giggled. “Never liked this table anyway,” he said with a smile. 

Daryl won three out of four though he was suspicious that Rick was letting him win. Old holdover from letting his boy win.

“Think I might be ready to get some sleep now,” Rick finally said. “Been a while.”

“Yeah, absolutely. I’ll only check on you to see if you’re still breathing.” 

Rick snorted a laugh and it turned into a sob, then a hard cry.

“Hey, man. Hey,” Daryl said scooting closer. “It’s okay. If you think of it, the worst is over.”

Rick let Daryl tug him into a hug and offer comfort. “Everything bad has already happened so it should be easy going now, right?”

Rick looked up at Daryl, dead serious. “But now I have you and what if you don’t make it.”

The fact that Rick has already thought of him as a cherished member of his family was not a familiar feeling but he liked it. 

“Want me to lay in the bed with you while you fall asleep? Daryl offered, not sure if he was way off base on Rick’s needs.

“Could you stay there all night in case I wake up? Been having nightmares when I manage to get a few winks.”

“Yeah, man. I get ‘em too. You wake me from them and I’ll wake you. Deal?”

Rick put out his hand for another shake. Handshakes. Boy, were they a thing of the past. 

After showers, Rick found some sweats and a tee that Daryl could fit in and they both crawled into the bed facing each other. 

“Were you married, Daryl? In the old world?”

“Nah. Gay. Are you sorry I’m in your bed now?”

Rick burst into a smile. “That’s the reason I had to leave Lori. Couldn’t live the lie anymore.”

“Maybe tomorrow, if we’re still both alive, You’ll let me take you on a proper date,” Daryl suggested with a newfound confidence in his flirtation.

“Something to look forward, too. I haven’t had that in months,” Rick smiled. “Good night, Daryl.”

“Good Night, Rick.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it and hope to hear from some of you. I know I'm shit at responding to comments but it doesn't mean I don't cherish every single one. I just get lazy after writing a fic I guess.
> 
> One of you had asked about my mental hospital fic I've mentioned several times. I'm sorry to say that I'm suffering greatly with my bipolar, depression and anxiety right now and I'm not in the right headspace to work on that one. Most of it came from real life events during my stays at mental hospitals so I think I need to stay clear of that for the time being. I'll try to keep writing though. We all need a little bit of happiness.


End file.
